


The Cost of the Fight

by Starships_and_Stopwatches



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cassian Andor-centric, Emotional Hurt, Guilt, Hurt Cassian Andor, I don't really know what a vignette is but I tried my best, Pre-scarif, Vignette, hopefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 14:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starships_and_Stopwatches/pseuds/Starships_and_Stopwatches
Summary: Before Rogue One departs for Scariff, Cassian takes some time alone to reflect on his life.





	The Cost of the Fight

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write a vignette for my English class, inspired by the quote "So it goes" from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I had no idea what a vignette was until today, and I still don't know if I actually got it right, but I wrote something.

The wind blew calmly across the planet’s surface, rustling the branches of the nearby forest. From his high perch on the base’s tower, he listened to the soft sound it produced; it was something he had never allowed himself to notice before. Ever since he was a child, his focus had always been his duties, his responsibilities, his role in the fight. But even after years of certainty, he still felt his belief in the cause wavering on the day that his commitment mattered the most.

He looked down at his hands, calloused and rough from years of conflict. He had always tried to distance himself from the actions he committed as a spy in defense of the innocent and the hurting. But his hands were a constant reminder that his crimes would always be a part of him, attached to his being just as his hands were to his body. He felt repressed feelings of guilt and shame floating to the surface of his mind. The emotions threatened to overwhelm him, he fought to push them back  — he didn’t have the luxury of breaking down that day.

Shifting his vision away from his hands, he looked out across the base. People dotted the landscape beneath him, and he could barely make out the distant faces of both those he knew and many he had never met. He felt the emotions rising again. The base had been his home and his fellow insurgents his family ever since he had arrived there as a young boy. Now, as he was facing the most difficult decision of his life, he didn’t know if he had the strength to leave it all behind. He could still choose not to go — but he knew that decision would haunt him for the rest of his life. As he took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself again, he heard the familiar heavy footsteps of his friend approaching.

“It’s time to go,” a familiar voice informed him. He could hear a cautious gentleness in his friend’s synthesized voice, a tone the droid only used when he knew the spy was hurting. It was a voice he had come to know well over the years; it was the one he needed to hear that day.

He realized he would not be giving up everything he loved, but what he did have to let go, he wouldn’t be letting it go alone. With the newfound determination this revelation gave him, he took one last deep, calming breath before pushing himself up to follow his friend to the ship that would take them off-planet and, expectedly, to their deaths. But this no longer bothered him; he had his firm belief in the cause, the companionship of his friends, and the strength to face his fate.

_Everyone dies someday_ , he thought as the ship lifted off the ground, _so it goes_.


End file.
